With multiple trial and errors, the high school experience is a door-opener to the evolution of our character. These experimental years help structure lifelong lessons we continue to follow, especially how we choose to take care of ourselves, the people we choose to be around, the time we wish to spend, and overall mentality.
A lot of students have various opinions on how to take care of themselves. Here’s a list of self-care tactics that ICSA students have adopted.
Working out
A popular form of self-care is working out, whether it’s participating in sports or even going to the gym frequently.
According to multiple students at ICSA, the art of working out is typically used as an emotional crutch. When feeling down in the dumps, rather than acting irrational in the heat of the moment, slowly releasing your anger while being physically active has proven to work wonders. Even in non-competitive sports, just being in your zone can give you a calmer headspace. “When I get mad, I put it into sports like soccer, which explains why I push people a lot,” says ICSA student Chloe Kouadio.
“If you’re not fit or working out, you won’t feel satisfied with yourself. it’s not just about building strength but building mental strength, discipline, resilience and overall challenging yourself.”
—Amen Girma
Other students perceive working out as preparation for the real world—a challenge that helps maintain the habit of discipline and building a stronger mentality. This is much better than playing video games all day or wasting your idle hours on doing things that won’t perfect your craft or benefit you in the future.
Gymtimidation: what if the gym isn’t for me?
The starting stages of actually committing to a sport or consistently going to the gym is a difficult curve for most to overcome. Though, with practice you can become like the best. Doubt never works in our favor.
“Honestly, at first I was super shy seeing people who are really buff or with nice physiques, and it can lead to overthinking about what people may think about you or if you can even keep up. But once you start, stay committed because once you see results, you’ll like it,” says Grace Bandaman.
Gym anxiety is one of the main reasons while people don’t start a workout program. However, these fears are all invented in the mind. With one good glance, you’ll see that everyone’s focused on themselves. Nobody cares about what you do right or wrong, and most times, it’s a safe space to ask for help. We’ve all stood in that same uncomfortable place at some point.
Hair Maintenance
One of the first steps most high schoolers undergo in their morning prep is hair maintenance. Though, it’s not so easy caring for your hair, and a little research and test runs can go a long way.
Finding your specific hair type is an easy way to narrow down your options on what to do. For example, oilier hair needs more frequent wash days with products that specifically combat oil. While coarse hair can go for more than a week without a wash. Same goes for your hair porosity; it’s like a close glimpse at the heart beat of your hair.
High porosity hair adores high protein products because they’re easily absorbed through the cuticle. Low porosity, on the other hand, tends to be sensitive to too much protein intake in the scalp. Since the cuticles are tightly sealed, too much protein would just stack up on top until it’s just a bunch of product build up.
Even trying new styles can be frustrating, sometimes the parting is too off, or you get an ‘expectation vs reality’ moment, wondering why your hair isn’t looking like the reference. The best piece of advice is to practice. Will you make a mistake? Absolutely, but who hasn’t?
Mwamvita Barnabas says, “At first glance, hair care doesn’t seem so complicated…right? Well, after my grandma had stopped doing my hair for me, I felt lost. It’s different watching someone do your hair rather than doing it yourself. So for some time I would come swimming with crooked frizzy braids that I’d take care of very roughly because of frustration.”
Falling for the trap of “Good Hair”
A crucial thing to remember before starting your journey with hair care is to find love with your hair’s natural state and not try to make it something it’s not. Spoiler alert: it’s not good for your hair and can actually make it much worse than it was originally.
The exposition of “good hair” being systematically instilled into our heads can frustrate vulnerable adolescents—sending us into YouTube or TikTok spirals learning how to change our hair’s natural state.
“When I was younger, I’d straighten my hair to make myself appear “better” to others,” says Chloe Koaudio. “That’s how I ended up with heat damage. Back when I was younger, I paid too much attention to what people thought of me and would go to great lengths to seem appealing to others. Heat damage slapped me back into reality, and I started investing my hair into things more suitable for me, low-key made it a hobby.”
Romanticizing school
In an article entitled “The Importance of Self-Care for High School Students,” it states that we “may feel overwhelmed by the demands of academic work, extracurricular activities, and social obligations,” and that “regular exercise, healthy eating, and adequate sleep can all improve cognitive function and memory retention, leading to better academic performance.”
And while that’s all well and good, how can we turn this endless cycle upside down and sprinkle in a bit of interest? The romanticization of school, of course!
Completely erase that dull reality of waking up at 5am groggily getting ready for school just to be forced to sit still impatiently waiting for the hour’s to tick. And instead add a spin to your day like, listening to music, highlighting notes, making a vision board, finding an ideal study space & spending less time on social media.
Doing these things has been proven to keep students more attentive and engaged in class, especially when starting off with a vision board. This board is a set of visual goals you make for yourself to accomplish. Common goals for students are getting higher grades and/or doing more extracurricular activities.
Cutting off social media is also another effective way to take care of yourself, mainly because social media is assocaited with procrastination. It’s quite common for teenagers to get distracted when working if they’re constantly being buzzed with notifications. We’ve probably all experienced telling ourselves “oh I’ll do it later” or “only for 5 minutes.” And before you know it, you’ve been scrolling aimlessly for much longer than you’ve accounted for.
A way to fix this is by setting alarms that even out your work and break times, or even simply setting your phone to the side to avoid distractions.
Journaling
Journaling is a great coping strategy to assess our own mental states. It’s also a healthy outlet for us to put all our demons onto the page and out of our heads—lifting any emotional baggage we might be carrying.
Journaling can quickly turn into a vulnerable experience , as you write down your thoughts, those feelings become clearer to you. It allows you to gain control over your emotions and bring down your barriers over time.
Ways to actually start journaling is to search up some light-hearted prompts to start with. For example, write a happy day for yourself / memory. As time progresses, and you get more comfortable, you can turn to shadow working.
Shadow work is basically the process of unveiling your repressed memories. This is considered the most exposing and uncomfortable part of journaling. However, shadow work allows you to let go of the hurt in your past and break off those chains dragging you down.
“Ignoring emotions will bother you,” says Mousa Drammeh. “I know people who write to get stuff off their chest. I think it’s a good technique because like if I can just write ‘Oh I hate this person!’ you can then be done with it and start fresh.”
Journaling doesn’t have to just consist of venting; it should also be used as a tool to affirm your desired reality. If you jot down nice things about yourself, you will feel significantly better. Even when you look in the mirror, self-praise is the best remedy for confidence.
It’s been scientifically proven that speaking words of affirmation to yourself can declare your reality. For example, if you say negative things about yourself, it obviously won’t uplift you, but even worse can actually affirm what you say. Quite the opposite effect when showering yourself with positive affirmations, these will not only make you feel better about yourself, but can also construct your divine reality.
Why does what we say affect our lives so much? To put into much simpler terms, our subconscious minds are easily fooled. So, saying things that can be impossible to believe right now, might actually end up happening if you affirm it into existence.
Affirmations aren’t so difficult to come up with; just think about what you want for yourself (self-love, money, success, good grades etc.) And just make a sentence starting with “I do, I am, I have.”
Prioritizing yourself
To this day, the idea of prioritizing your self-care has been deemed as selfish, even if people pleasing, seeking validation or exhausting your energy to take care of others, has a negative effect on your mental health. The expectation of making yourself available to everyone, whether it’s to explain yourself, or paint a smile on your face for the appreciation of others, is simply too unrealistic. There’s nothing wrong with prioritizing some “me time.”
“Me time is very important,” says Mwamvita Barnabas. “Ninety percent of the time I’m in my room just finding peace with myself. Especially after a week of school and people, it’s nice to have that time to unwind. Other things I find peace in doing is listening to music, baking or reading. They take me to another place, in a sense.”
Self-care days are beneficial for human health. If you yourself aren’t healthy, how can you expect yourself to be around others? Do the things you enjoy and allow yourself to let loose, could be spa treatments, peaceful walks, meditation, house cleaning, cooking etc. Anything that doesn’t cloud your mind with stress, go ahead and do it.
Don’t be ashamed to take a self-care day; turn your open sign the other way, and live in the moment within your inner peace.
